SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: JANUARY 2012

2012 is National Mathematics Year and 125 Birth Anniversary of Ramanujan

                                                        
1 January 2012: On the occasion of  Ramanujan's 125th birth anniversary, Ramanujan's tale worth a Movie adaptation.The story of the famed mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan is poised to take Hollywood by a storm soon. Robert Kanigel, biographer of Ramanujan, announced that the shooting for an international film based on the biography written by him on Ramanujan will begin in 2012. Kanigel is  the director of the graduate programme in science writing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the author of "The man who knew infinity:A life of the Genius Ramanujan".Link: http://www.robertkanigel.com

2 January 2012: Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, India-born US citizen who won 2009 Nobel Prize in chemistry, has been honoured with a knighthood. Venkatraman will be called ‘Sir Venkatraman Ramakrishnan’ after Queen Elizabeth confers knighthood on him.  He has been conferred knighthood “for services to molecular biology”. Born in 1952 in the temple town of Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu, Ramakrishnan earned his B.Sc. in Physics from MS University in Baroda, Gujarat and later migrated to the US. He earned his Ph.D in Physics from Ohio University.In 2010, Venkatraman was awarded the Padma Vibhusan, nation’s second highest civilian honour.Link: http://www.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk

3 January 2012: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today inaugurated the 99th ‘Indian Science Congress’ at the campus of Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology University, Bhubaneswar. It is jointly organised by National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) and Indian Science Congress Association. The theme for the 99th Indian Science Congress is “Science and Technology for Inclusive Innovation- Role of Women”. The event will continue till 7th January.Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA) is a premier scientific organisation with the primary objective of promotion of science in India. It was started in 1914 with Headquarters at Kolkata.Link: http://www.iscexpo.in

4 January 2012: The 2011 UNESCO Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science was officially awarded to René Raúl Drucker Colín, the Mexican physiologist and Neurobiologist who holds a degree in Psychology and a doctorate in medicine, at a ceremony during the Indian Science Congress.Professor Drucker Colín has been described by UNESCO as "an ardent promoter of science." Colin is a regular writer for La Jornada, a daily Mexican newspaper, and a regular participant on the science programs of Televisa, a national television broadcaster. The biennial award was created in 1951 by Irina Bokova, the Director-General of UNESCO. The prize is jointly funded by the Kalinga Foundation and the Government of the Indian state of Orissa.Link:http://www.kalingafoundationtrust.com/

5 January 2012: At 5:53 am today (Perihelion Day), the Earth was at its nearest point from the Sun. The distance at that time is 147 million km. Every January, the Earth is at perihelion, the closest from the Sun for the year and in July it is at aphelion, the farthest to the Sun for the year.All planets, comets and asteroids in our solar system have elliptical orbits. Thus, they all have a closest and a farthest point from the Sun- a perihelion and an aphelion. Many people erroneously believe that the seasons are caused by the earth's distance to the Sun, but this fact disproves this common misconception as January is often the coldest month despite the Earth being at its closest distance from the Sun.Link:http://planetarysocietyindia.blogspot.com/ 

6 January 2012: As per the 2011 report of Forest Survey of India submitted to the Ministry of Environment and Forests, India's forest cover has declined by 367 sq km between 2007 and 2009. Maximum reduction in forest cover has been reported from insurgency-hit Manipur, totaling 190 sq km. Nagaland comes next with at least 146 sq km forest being lost between 2006 and 2008. The trend is equally worrying in Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya. But there have been some positive indicators elsewhere. Forest cover has increased by 100 sq km during these two years in Punjab. And Haryana and Himachal Pradesh reported slight increase in forest cover - 14 and 11 sq km respectively.Link:http://fsi.org.in/ 

7 January 2012: India’s Prime Minister has appointed Anil Kakodkar as the new head of his government’s the recently launched Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI).Kakodkar is a member of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and previously led India’s nuclear programme. The SECI has been created to act as the executing arm of the government’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM).It has been registered as a non-profit company under Section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956, and will work under the administrative control of the New and Renewable Energy Ministry (NREM). Kakodkar was in media for his support for nuclear energy to meet India's energy needs. Link: http://www.mnre.gov.in 

8 January 2012: The famous physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking turns 70 today. The British scientist was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease when he was a 21-year-old student at Cambridge University.Hawking first gained attention with his 1988 book A Brief History of Time, a simplified overview of the universe.His subsequent theories have revolutionized modern understanding of concepts like black holes and the Big Bang theory of how the universe began. For 30 years, he held a mathematics post at the Cambridge University previously held by Sir Isaac Newton. Hawking is now director of research at the Cambridge university's Centre for Theoretical Cosmology.Link: http://www.hawking.org.uk

9 January 2012: An Indian mission to Mars is taking shape with space scientists proposing 10 experiments, mostly related to the study of the Red Planet’s atmosphere.Mars Mission Study Team has already been formed. According to the scientists, if the launch takes place in November 2013, then the Indian spacecraft will enter the orbit around Mars in September 2014. It will be an orbiting mission and not a landing one. The 10 Indian Martian experiments include: Probe For Infrared Spectroscopy for Mars (PRISM), Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyzer (MENCA), Mars Color Camera (MCC), Mars Radiation Spectrometer (MARIS), Plasma and Current Experiment (PACE) etc.Link: http://www.isro.org

10 January 2012:Six distinguished scientists have been awarded the InfosysPrize,the highest award in Indiain terms of money (Rupees5Million),instituted by the Infosys Science Foundation,for the year 2011.The winners are Kalyanmoy Deb,Director, Kanpur Genetic Algorithms Laboratory (Engineering and Computer science), Imran Siddiqi, Scientist, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (Life Sciences), Kannan Soundararajan, Professor, Stanford University (Mathematical Sciences) Sriram Ramaswamy, Professor, Indian Institute of Science (Physical Sciences), Raghuram G. Rajan, Professor, University of Chicago (Economics) and Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Chief Executive, Centre for Policy Research (Political Science and International Relations).Link: http://www.infosys-science-foundation.com 

11 January 2012: One World's smallest vertebrate has been declared to be a frog with scientific name Paedophryne amanuensis. The adult frogs are about three-tenths of an inch long, and a millimetre or so smaller than a carp found on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The frogs are so small that Louisiana State University Herpetologist and Environmental biologist Christopher Austin had to enlarge close-up photos to describe them.Mr Austin discovered the tiny frogs while on a trip to Papua New Guinea. The expedition was sponsored by the National Science Foundation.The discovery is published in the journal PLoS.Link: http://www.plosone.org

12 January 2012: World’s largest solar telescope will be set-up in the cold desert in Ladakh. National Large Solar Telescope (NLST) will be set-up at Pangong Tso Lake Merak in Ladakh region.The site was selected after carefully studying various scientific and environmental aspects.The solar telescope will help the scientific community to study the long term changes in earth’s climate and environment and also provide useful data to carry out research in order to minimize or remove disruptions to communications network and satellites due to periodic solar winds.The facility will also provide employment opportunities to the local population in the area.Link: http://www.iiap.res.in

13 January 2012: Agriculture ministry of India has decided to continue government-funded Bt-cotton research. In the pipeline is the hunt for a next-generation “Super Bt cotton”, a project worth Rs 8,200 crore.The Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) has given the go-ahead for a multi-pronged project that aims to create genes that would offer protection from Jassids, a leaf hopping pest, and also give viral immunity to the cotton plant.Bikaneri and NHH 44 were the only Bt-cotton varieties developed through government-funded research to provide cheaper alternatives to farmers, while numerous other privately developed varieties crowd India’s royalty-driven Rs 2,000-crore cotton seed market. Link: http://www.iiap.res.in.

14 January 2012: More than two-thirds of Indian milk is adulterated with items ranging from salt to detergent and may be unsafe to drink, according to the survey conducted by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India.The survey conducted in 33 states found that 68.4% of 1,791 milk samples were contaminated.The survey said that only two states - Goa and Pondicherry - sold unadulterated milk, while all 250 samples from four eastern states were found to be contaminated with detergent. It is the first time that such findings had been released by a government agency. The survey is also significant because it was one of the biggest survey ever conducted taking 1,800 samples from 33 states and union territories. Link: http://www.fssai.gov.in

15 January 2012: The failed Russian Mars probe, Phobos-Grunt,fell into the Pacific Ocean today. The crash marked a dramatic end toPhobos-Grunt's brief and troubled life.The $165 million probe launched Nov. 8 on a mission to collect soil samples from the Martian moon Phobos and send them back to Earth in a return capsule ("grunt" means "soil" in Russian).Russian officials still aren't sure what went wrong in Phobos-Grunt and perhaps for the other four embarrassing space failures.Phobos-Grunt was also carrying China's first attempt at a Mars orbiter. This is the third spacecraft failure in four months, following the return in September of the American UARS satellite and the German Rosat telescope in October.Link: http://www.russianspaceweb.com   

16 January 2012: Scientists have claimed that chunks of a meteorite which fell near Foumzgit in Morocco during July 2011 were from Mars - a rare event which happened for the first time in 50 years.It is the fifth time that such Martian meteorite fall has been reported.The first was in 1815 in France, second in 1865 in India , followed by Egypt in 1911 and Nigeria in 1962.In fact, astronomers believe that millions of years ago something large collided with Mars, spraying rock into space where it began gliding through the solar system until a piece entered Earth's atmosphere. It fragmented as it descended and one large piece reached the ground where it broke up into smaller pieces weighing 15 pounds. Link: http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov 

17 January 2012: The Doppler Weather RADAR was installed at Anisabad, Bihar which is likely to be a boon for people of Bihar and Jharkhand to know in advance about weather behaviour.The newly installed "S-Band Doppler RADAR" will scan the atmosphere round-the-clock and provides information about the presence of clouds within the range of 500-km radius around Patna. The 'Doppler Weather RADAR' installed by Indian Meteorological Department. It is the seventh such RADAR installed across the country so far to monitor and scan weather round-the-clock. Data gathered through Doppler RADAR could be transmitted to other centres across the country. Link: http://www.imd.gov.in

18 January 2012: Arctic sea has become the latest battleground for international diplomacy, with India, China and Brazil trying to join the Arctic Council.Non-Arctic countries are only given the status of observers.Besides eight full members - Canada, Russia, US, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Iceland and Denmark - the council currently has six non-Arctic countries as observers - the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Poland and the Netherlands. India, China, Brazil, South Korea and Japan, which have no Arctic territory are seeking to become observers.India already has the status of observer in the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), which in turn is an observer in the Arctic Council.Link: http://iasc.arcticportal.org 

19 January 2012: The country's first Public Private Partnership (PPP) telecom business incubator - 'Startup Village' - will be set up at KINFRA (Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation) Park in Kalamassery near Cochin, Kerala. Startup Village will focus primarily on student start-ups from college campuses and would be modelled on Silicon Valley, US.The National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB), the Department of Science and Technology (DST),Technopark and MobME Wireless have joined hands to set up Startup Village.The first phase of the Startup Village is expected to be inaugurated by February 2012 and the first batch would be inducted by April 2012.Link: http://www.nstedb.com

20 January 2012: Indian Space Research Organisation will launch the Radar Image Satellite Microwave 1 (RI Sat 1), the first Indian satellite equipped with a radar system (microwave system) in 15 March 2012.The radar/microwave system will enable the country to create images during different weather conditions and also will map the terrain of India as opposed to earlier remote-sensing missions, which relied primarily on optical instruments.Apart from RI Sat 1, Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSVL) Mk-III flight will reach the cryogenic state around June, 2012. There are also plans for a Geographic Information System (GIS) at the national level which will be widely accessible to various users at different levels.Link: http://www.isro.org

21 January 2012: China's Sunway BlueLight supercomputer, which was built with ShenWei processors solely developed by the People's Republic of China, which is capable of performing around 1,000 trillion calculations per second, has officially begun operations. It was developed by National Parallel Computer Engineering Technology Research Center and supported by Technology Department 863 project. The computer began working at the National Supercomputing Centre in the Shandong province.This makes China the third country in the world - after the US and Japan - to produce a supercomputer with domestically-produced processors.The Sunway BlueLight will be used to increase the accuracy of climate simulations. Link: http://www.cistc.gov.cn

22 January 2012: The Atomic Minerals Directorate (AMD) of India is now continuing its Uranium exploration in the Satpuda-Gondwana formations, especially in the Sarguja belt in Chhattisgarh.The directorate is also focusing on increasing exploration activities in Karnataka(Marlagalam in Mandya district), Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh(Kadappa district) for rare earth metals like Niobium (used in nuclear reactors) and Tantalum (used in electronics industry).Uranium Corporation India Limited ( UCIL) has already constructed an underground mine at Tummalapalle in the Tumalapalli village of Andhra Pradesh. The commercial production of Uranium may commence any time this year.Link:http://www.amd.gov.in 

23 January 2012: The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has decided to postpone by at least three years the decision on the continuance of the ‘leap second’.The union considers a "leap second" as a second, as measured by an atomic clock, added to or subtracted from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) to make it agree with astronomical time to within 0.9 second.Referring to the leap second, the Radiocommunication Assembly of the International Telecommunication Union has reached an important decision to defer the development of a continuous time standard.These studies will be referred to the next Radiocommunication Assembly and World Radiocommunication Conference scheduled for 2015.Link:http://www.itu.int/en 

24 January 2012: India became the world's sixth country after the US, Russia, France, the UK and China to operate Nuclear-powered submarines when the Russian Akula-II class submarine `K-152 Nerpa' was commissioned into Indian Navy as INS Chakra on a 10-year lease under a secretive contract.The 8,140-tonne INS Chakra, however, is not armed with long-range nuclear missiles due to international non-proliferation treaties like the Missile Technology Control Regime. Meanwhile,the homegrown nuclear submarine, INS Arihant equipped to carry 3,500km range ballistic missiles, becomes fully operational by early-2013.The `Charlie-I' class nuclear submarine leased from Russia for the period of 1988 to 1991 was also named INS Chakra. Link:http://indiannavy.nic.in

25 January 2012:Solar radiation from a massive sun storm - the largest in nearly a decade - collided with the Earth's atmosphere prompting an airline to reroute flights and sky watchers to seek out spectacular light displays.Flight in transpolar journeys between Asia and the United States had to be rerouted to avoid problems caused by the radiation storm. NASA confirmed the coronal mass ejection (CME) began colliding with Earth's magnetic field around 10:00 AM (1500 GMT) Tuesday, adding that the storm was now being considered the largest since October 2003. Radiation storms are not harmful to humans, on Earth at least, they can, however, affect satellite operations.Link: http://spaceweather.com

26 January 2012: In what's claimed to be the third time in recorded history,two amateur British astronomers say they have discovered a new planet which they want to be named after them.Chris Holmes and Lee Threapleton spotted the new planet which is thought to be gaseous and around the size of Neptune. they were working on a project to find planets beyond our solar system, publicized by Brian Cox in his Stargazing Live series. If their discovery is confirmed by planetary scientists, then the planet will be named 'Threapleton Holmes B'. They made the discovery from NASA's Kepler Space Telescope images.The planet appears to be orbiting a sun called SPH 10066540, which lies between 600 and 3,000 light years away. Link:http://www.planethunters.org  

27 January 2012: Padma Awards for the year 2012 have been announced. In the field of Science: Padma Vibhushan: Dr. Kantilal Hastimal Sancheti (Medicine); Padma Bhushan: Prof. Shashikumar Chitre,  Dr. M S Raghunathan, (Science and Engineering), Dr. Suresh H. Advani (Medicine/Oncology), Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty (Medicine/Cardiology), Dr. Noshir H Wadia (Medicine/Neurology); Padma Shri:Dr. V. Adimurth, Dr. Krishna Lal Chadha, Prof. Virander Singh Chauhan (Science and Engineering), Prof. Mahdi Hasan (Medicine/Anatomy), Dr. J. Hareendran Nair (Medicine/Ayurveda), Dr. Jitendra Kumar Singh (Medicine/Oncology),Dr. K. (Kota) Ullas Karanth (Wildlife Conservation and Environment Protection), Shri Swapan Guha (Ceramics).Link:http://india.gov.in  

28 January 2012: NASA's Kepler Space Telescope mission has confirmed 26 new planets outside our solar system, all of them orbiting too close to their host stars to sustain life.Scattered across 11 planetary systems, their temperatures would be too hot for survival, as they all circle their stars closer than Venus, the second planet from the Sun, which has a surface temperature of 464 Celsius (867 F).The 26 planets orbit their stars between every six and 143 days. In December last year, Kepler had confirmed its first-ever planet in a habitable zone outside our solar system, Kepler 22b.The discoveries are described in four different papers in the Astrophysical Journal and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Link:http://www.nasa.gov  

29 January 2012: The State Government of Kerala has decided to establish a Wetland Research Institute at Kottayam.The announcement came as part of the Chief Minister Oommen Chandy's message sent for the 24th Kerala Science Congress which began today at the Rubber Research Institute, Kottayam. The government would also set up an advanced institute for mathematics in the name of Srinivasa Ramanujan, who was one of India's greatest mathematical geniuses. The institute will be called 'Srinivasa Ramanujan Institute for Basic Sciences'.The decision came as part of the state level inauguration of the National Mathematical Year-2012 celebrations in the state. Link:http://www.kscste.kerala.gov.in

30 January 2012: In a study by Yale and Columbia Universities, India has the world's most toxic air, when compared to the 132 nations in terms of air quality with regard to its effect on human health.India scored 3.73,lagging far behind the next worst performer, Bangladesh, which scored 13.66. European nations of Switzerland, Latvia and Norway are at the other end of the scale.The Index report was presented at the World Economic Forum currently taking place in Davos. The Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and Columbia's Center for International Earth Science Information Network have brought out the Environment Performance Index rankings every two years since 2006.Link: http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu

31 January 2011: This month marks the 25th anniversary of the discovery of Mitochondrial Eve, a common ancestor of all humanity lived in Africa some 150,000-200,000 years ago.The original paper, "Mitochondrial DNA and Human Evolution", appeared in the January 1987 issue of the scientific journal Nature. It was the work of three scientists Rebecca Cann, Mark Stoneking and Allan Wilson, who sadly died in 1991 at just 56. Wilson was one of the earliest scientists to use molecular biology and genetic markers to probe the origins of humanity, which culminated in the discovery of Mitochondrial Eve.Despite all the criticisms, the central conclusion of the study remains unchanged that the human mtDNA ancestor lived in Africa.Link:http://www.nature.com

MOVIE OF THE MONTH: JANUARY 2012

                                                                                       
Directer         : Guy Ritchie
Story             : Kieran Mulroney
Music            : Hans Zimmer
Camera         : Philippe Rousselot
Distributer    : Warner Bros.
Running time: 129 minutes
Country         :United Kingdom


Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is a 2011 British-American action detective film directed by Guy Ritchie and produced by Joel Silver, Lionel Wigram, Susan Downey, and Dan Lin. It is a sequel to the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes, based on the character of the same name created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.The film is specifically influenced by Conan Doyle's work The Final Problem, but it is an independent story rather than a strict adaptation.
In 1891, Irene Adler delivers a package to Dr. Hoffmanstahl—payment for a letter he was to deliver. Hoffmanstahl opens the package, triggering a hidden bomb which is prevented from detonating by the intervention of Sherlock Holmes Holmes takes the letter and disposes of the bomb while Adler and Hoffmanstahl escape. Holmes later finds Hoffmanstahl assassinated. 
Adler meets with Professor Moriarty to explain the events, but Moriarty poisons her—deeming her position compromised by her love for Holmes. Some time later, Dr. Watson arrives at 221B Baker Street, where Holmes discloses that he is investigating a series of seemingly unrelated murders, terrorist attacks, and business acquisitions, that he has connected to Moriarty.Holmes meets with the gypsy Simza, the intended recipient of the letter he had taken from Adler, sent by her brother Rene. 
Holmes defeats an assassin sent to kill Simza, but she flees before Holmes can interrogate her. After Mary and Watson's wedding, Holmes meets Moriarty for the first time. Moriarty informs Holmes that he murdered Adler and will kill Watson and Mary if Holmes' interference continues.Moriarty's men attack Watson and Mary on a train to their honeymoon. Holmes, having followed the pair for protection, throws Mary from the train into a river below where she is picked up by Holmes's waiting brother Mycroft. 
After defeating Moriarty's men, Holmes and Watson travel to Paris to locate Simza.When she is found, Holmes tells Simza that she has been targeted because Rene is working for Moriarty, and may have told her about his plans. Simza takes the pair to the headquarters of an anarchist group to which she and Rene had formerly belonged. They learn that the anarchists have been forced to plant bombs for Moriarty...


Website: http://sherlockholmes2.warnerbros.com

BOOK OF THE MONTH: JANUARY 2012

                                                         
Title: A LIFE OF THE GENIUS RAMANUJAN:
             The Man Who Knew Infinity
Author: Robert Kanigel
Paperback: 438 pages
Publisher: C. Scribner's 
ISBN:  978-0684192598


In 1913, a young, unschooled Indian clerk wrote a letter to G. H. Hardy, begging that pre-eminent English mathematician’s opinion on several ideas he had about numbers. Hardy, realizing the letter was the work of a genius, arranged for Srinivasa Ramanujan to come to England. Thus began one of the most remarkable collaborations ever chronicled.

2012 is the 125th birth anniversary of Ramanujan and this biography traces the life of one of the greatest geniuses of the 20th century, Ramanujan. This incredibly brilliant Indian mathematician, working alone in relative obscurity and lacking the usual academic credentials, could easily have passed unnoticed. However, with the help of a handful of friends and the ultimate support of renowned English mathematician G.H. Hardy, his work was brought to the attention of the world. 
When he died in 1920 at 32 he had become a folk-hero in his own country. He left a rich lode of original mathematics, which is still being mined today. This extremely well-researched and well-written biography is a "must" addition to any library collection.

He was born in India, on December 22, 1887. He was of the Brahmin caste. His family was poor. He lived much of his life in Madras. He was mostly a failure at school, as mathematics is all that he would do. Several times he failed to get into college in India. In 1903, he found the mediocre book, A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics by George Carr. While mastering this book, Ramanujan began discovering mathematical formulas which were not in the book. And he wrote these down in notebooks. 


He got a job as a clerk. He traveled around India showing his notebooks to mathematicians, trying to get into college. In 1913, he wrote letters to mathematicians in England.Because of Hardy's support, Ramanujan received a scholarship at Presidency College in Madras. This gave him what he needed most, enough money to live, and the time to do mathematics. 


Hardy tried to get him to come to England, to study at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1914 Ramanujan sailed to England, leaving his 13 year old wife in India. World War I began.Ramanujan sharpened up his knowledge and technique. And he collaborated on papers with Cambridge mathematicians, mostly with Hardy. And Ramanujan became world famous among mathematicians. 


In 1918 Ramanujan got sick, apparently with tuberculosis, and published fewer papers. He tried to commit suicide. In 1918 he was elected to the Royal Society. World War I ended. In 1919 he returned to Madras. His mother tried to destroy his marriage. His illness got worse; he wasted away. Near the end he produced some of his most interesting work. 


On April 26, 1920, Ramanujan died at the age of 32. Ramanujan was creative and original, more so than perhaps any other mathematician in history. He was fairly weak in some areas, especially in proving his interesting conjectures. As a result, a few of his conjectures are false. Others of his conjectures and papers are still producing new results, 80 years later.


Courtesy: www.amazon.com, The Man Who Knew Infinity: Untutored Genius by R Tandon  published in RESONANCE, December 1996.

EVENT OF THE MONTH: JANUARY 2012

                                                                               
The 24th session of the Kerala Science Congress (KSC) will be organized jointly by  Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE)  and Rubber Board at Kottayam during 29th to 31st January 2012.  KSCSTE as the umbrella organization of the research establishments in the State, in its effort to take stock of significant research developments during the year, organises the annual Kerala Science Congress, to revitalize R&D in the state and to identify new talents in scientific research in Kerala. 


Realising the critical role of Science and Technology in socio-economic development, Kerala has made substantial efforts to strengthen its science base through a number of research and development initiatives. In almost every key sector, whether it is agriculture, forestry, fisheries, industry, transport, environment, energy, material sciences, there are top class institutions undertaking research relevant to the needs of the State. Every sphere of science as well as the different phases of research – basic, strategic, applied and adaptive - are being addressed by the Universities and the R&D institutions in the State. Being a state with high population density and limited natural resources, wise use of the resources and building up human skills are essential.


The 24th Kerala Science Congress will have a number of sessions for providing an opportunity for intense interaction and knowledge sharing. General papers, contest papers and posters in the identified subject areas will be included. Particular thrust will be given to encourage young researchers through Young Scientist Awards and Children’s Science Congress. KSC will also provide a platform for interaction and exchange of ideas between scientists and young researchers working in different parts of the country.


Website: http://ksc.kerala.gov.in

SPECIES OF THE MONTH: JANUARY 2012

BOMBAY SNAKE!

Photo Courtesy: Down to Earth

                                                                                   
Kingdom :Animalia
Phylum   :Chordata
Class       :Reptilia
Order      :Squamata
Suborder :Serpentes
Family     :Colubridae
Subfamily:Colubrinae
Genus      :Dendrelaphis
Species     :Dendrelaphis girii


A snake species found only in the Western Ghats has been given the scientific name 'Dendrelaphis girii', after Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) scientist Varad B Giri. In 2009, Dr Gernot Vogel, an expert on snake taxonomy from Germany, visited BNHS to study the specimens of Dendrelaphis in its museum. During this visit, Giri showed him the interesting specimens of Dendrelaphis from Amboli, Goa and Castle Rock. He informed Vogel that this appeared to be a new species.


Vogel inspected these and other similar specimens in the BNHS collection. Based on the data and photographs taken by snake expert Ashok Captain, Vogel and his colleague, Dr Johan Van Rooijen submitted a scientific paper that was published in a science journal, Taprobanica, recently. Vogel and Van Rooijen named the species as Dendrelaphis girii. The species of Dendrelaphis identified by the combination of characters like two loreal scales (that lie between eyes and nostrils) on each side of the head; 15 rows of scales dorsal at mid-body; enlarged vertebral scales; 166-173 ventrals (scales on the belly); 140-147 subcaudals (scales below the tail) and other characters.


The new species has a black stripe behind the eye that barely extends onto the neck. In 2001, a team of nature enthusiasts lead by Ashok Captain and Kedar Bhide had encountered the species of snake at Amboli in Sindhudurg district. They both tried to identify that snake using scientific techniques and concluded that the particular reptile is very close to Dendrelaphis bifrenalis, a species of snake from Sri Lanka.Giri and Kehimkar also encountered the same species of snake in the forests of Castle Rock, Karnataka and Amboli during their subsequent visits. These specimens were brought to BNHS by Giri for further observations and study.


News Courtesy: Times of India

SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: DECEMBER 2011

No more Frogs for Torture in Class Rooms
http://moef.nic.in/legis/awbi/awbi10.html

1 December 2011: The University Grants Commission (UGC) has issued guidelines for the discontinuation of dissection and animal experimentation in Zoology and life science courses in a phased manner. UGC encourages introduction of digital technologies in all such educational institutions to teach animal anatomy and physiology. The experimental animal, to the best extent possible, should be procured from laboratory bred sources, especially breeders approved by Committee for Purpose of Care and Supervision of Experimental Animals (CPCSEA), Department of Environment and Forests. Their use will be under the purview of Institutional Animal Ethics Committee (IAEC), Removal of animals from their natural habitats should be best avoided.Link: http://www.ugc.ac.in/

2 December 2011: India today successfully test-fired its nuclear capable Agni-I strategic ballistic missile, with a strike range of 700 km, as part of the Army's user trial from the test range at Wheeler Island off Odisha coast.Agni-I is powered by solid propellants, that can be fired from a mobile launcher.Weighing 12 tonnes, Agni-I, can carry payloads up to 1000 kg. It has already been inducted into the Indian Army. Agni-I was developed by advanced systems laboratory (ASL), the premier missile development laboratory of the DRDO in collaboration with Defence Research Development Laboratory (DRDL) and Research Centre Imarat (RCI) and integrated by Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL), Hyderabad. The last trial of the Agni-I missile was successfully carried out on November 25, 2010 from the same base.Link: http://drdo.gov.in

3 December 2011: Siddhartha Mukherjee, a New York-based cancer physician and graduate of Stanford, Oxford and Harvard, Mukherjee won the Guardian First Book award for his book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A biography of Cancer. The book is  "biography" of cancer which traces the disease from the first recorded mastectomy in 500BC to today's cutting edge research. Siddhartha Mukherjee has called his book, a mix of history, memoir and biography, of science and the personal stories of cancer patients. he same book also received Pulitzer prize in the general non-fiction category, last year. Mukherjee is an oncologist at the Columbia University Medical Center. Link:http://sidmukherjee.com

4 December 2011: According to an analysis released by the Global Carbon Project, an international collaboration of scientists, the global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning jumped by the largest amount on record last year. Emissions rose 5.9 percent in 2010, .In the United States, emissions dropped by a remarkable 7 percent in the recession year of 2009, but rose by just over 4 percent last year. The United States was surpassed several years ago by China, where emissions grew 10.4 percent in 2010, with that country injecting 2.2 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide emissions are usually measured by the weight of carbon they contain. Link: http://www.globalcarbonproject.org

5 December 2011:In another step toward finding Earth-like planets that may hold life, the Kepler Space Telescope has confirmed its first-ever planet in a habitable zone outside our solar system. The newly confirmed planet, Kepler-22b, is the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star similar to our sun. The planet is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth. Spinning around its star some 600 light years away and orbits its Sun-like star every 290 days. Its near-surface temperature is presumed to be about 72 degrees 22 Celsius. Scientists don't yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition. Link: http://kepler.nasa.gov

6 December 2011: Within 5 years, a woolly mammoth will likely be cloned, according to scientists who have just recovered well-preserved bone marrow in a mammoth thigh bone. Russian scientist Semyon Grigoriev, acting director of the Sakha Republic's mammoth museum, and colleagues are now analyzing the marrow, which they extracted from the mammoth's femur, found in Siberian permafrost soil. Grigoriev and his team, along with Japan's Kinki University, have announced that they will launch a joint research project next year aimed at recreating the enormous mammal, which went extinct around 10,000 years ago. Link: http://www.kindai.ac.jp/english

7 December 2011: The following Indian scientists have been selected for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences: Vishva Dixit of Genentech in South San Francisco; Shree K. Nayar of Columbia University in New York; Amita Sehgal of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Raghunath A. Mashelkar of CSIR, India and president of the Global Research Alliance in Pretoria, South Africa. These are among a total 212 new members selected to join one of the nation's most prestigious honorary societies and a leading center for independent policy research. All the new members earned election for extraordinary individual achievement and are among the world's most influential artists and scholars. Link: http://www.amacad.org

8 December 2011: Bridging the gap between industry requirements and education imparted by colleges in the country will be one of the main agenda of the 26th Indian Engineering Congress (IEC). The event, which will be held between December 15 and December 18, will reportedly host more than 5,000 participants from India and across the world. The four-day congress, organised by Institution of Engineers, revolves around the theme ‘Towards Prosperous India: Challenges for Engineers’ and will feature 15 conferences focusing on various fields in engineering. The congress would exhibit products and systems that are representative of more than 20 streams in engineering.Link: http://iec2011.in

9 December 2011: As part of its dynamic partnership with India, the United States, through the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), supports evidence-driven and innovative approaches to support India's National AIDS Control Programme. PEPFAR provides expert technical cooperation to address priority areas linked to HIV prevention and treatment, and health system strengthening. For example, the U.S. has funded numerous demonstration projects that subsequently have been adopted and scaled up by the government of India or the private sector, including evidence-based prevention among most-at-risk-populations and workplace HIV programmes.Link: http://www.pepfar.gov

10 December 2011: Sky-lovers and amateurs will get to witness the celestial event today evening. Starting 7.35pm, the total eclipse of the moon can be sighted from Kolkata and rest of the country for 51 minutes till 8.28pm. The eclipse will be visible from Asia and Australia. Europe and Africa will miss the early eclipse phases because they occur before moonrise. The eclipse will not be visible from South America or Antarctica. After December 10, the next opportunity to observe a total lunar eclipse will be on July 27, 2018. Though there will be another total lunar eclipse on January 31, 2018, the whole country will not experience the total lunar eclipse in its entirety. Link: http://www.astronomia.org

11 December 2011: Durban climate conference reached a hard-fought agreement today on a far-reaching program meant to set a new course for the global fight against climate change.It would take effect by 2020 at the latest.Currently, only industrial countries have legally binding emissions targets under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The deal also set up the bodies that will collect, govern and distribute tens of billions of dollars a year for poor countries. Other documents in the package lay out rules for monitoring and verifying emissions reductions, protecting forests, transferring clean technologies to developing countries and scores of technical issues. The package gives new life to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.Link: http://www.cop17-cmp7durban.com

12 December 2011: The Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) and other allied bodies which are a part of the worldwide 30-m telescope (TMT) are expecting a go-ahead from the Government of India for the project by 2013. The TMT project will take eight more years to get operational, but by the end of next year, the technical demo will be made by IIA to the Department of Science and Technology. The TMT will see “first light” and be operational around 2020. Currently, one of the largest telescopes in the world is the W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, which has two 10-m telescopes, and the costs for a single night's viewing are high.The TMT will be placed on Mauna Kea, the highest point in the state of Hawaii. Link: http://www.tmt.org

13 December 2011: The list of elements chemistry students have to memorize is about to get longer. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry has announced names for the two newest elements on the periodic table: Flerovium (FL) and Livermorium (Lv). The newly named elements fit in the 114 and 116 spots, down in the lower-right corner of the periodic table, and were officially accepted to the periodic table back in June.For element 114, scientists tried out the name Ununquadium before settling on Flerovium in honor of the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions, where the element was synthesized, the Silicon Valley Mercury News reported. In 1997, Lawrencium was named after the lab's founder, E.O. Lawrence.Link: http://www.taprobanica.lk/

14 December 2011: One hundred years ago today, Roald Amundsen arrived at the South Pole and planted the Norwegian flag on the spot. Anyone who has read Roland Huntford's 1979 book Scott and Amundsen: The Race to the South Pole is pretty much convinced that Amundsen was an exploring genius, learning from the Inuit how to dress, how to eat, how to use dogs and travel in comfort and style, while another explorer Falcon Scott was there who used horses and automobiles unsuited for the campaign, and had nobody to blame but himself for his death. However, now on the hundredth anniversary of Amundsen's victory, Scott's reputation is on the rise again. Link: http://www.south-pole.com 

15 December 2011: Aligarh Muslim University has launched a website focusing exclusively to the field of Information Technology (IT). The "Subject Information Gateway in Information Technology" (SIGIT) provides easy access to quality information to meet the requirements of the scientific and academic community in the digital era. The website also includes e-journals, e-books, list of IT schools, their curriculum links, databases, free as well as open source software, research projects, electronic theses and dissertations, programming languages, forthcoming conferences/workshops, fellowships and grants, training programmes in IT, etc.Link: http://www.itsubjectgateway.com

16 December 2011: The most coveted prize in particle physics - the Higgs boson - may have been glimpsed, say researchers reporting at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva.The particle is purported to be the means by which everything in the Universe obtains its mass.Scientists say that two experiments at the LHC see hints of the Higgs at the same mass, fuelling huge excitement.But the LHC does not yet have enough data to claim a discovery.Finding the Higgs would be one of the biggest scientific advances of the last 60 years. It is crucial for allowing us to make sense of the Universe, but has never been observed by experiments.Higgs Boson is the significant missing component of the "Standard Model" of the Universe.Link:http://public.web.cern.ch

17 December 2011: The Malayali could have a genetic link to the Caucasians more than any other race on earth, a genome sequencing project by a Kochi-based laboratory has revealed. The complete sequencing of the first Malayali genome by SciGenom Labs provides a window into the genetic diversity of this linguistic group. The term Caucasian generally refers to the white race. The announcement of the complete sequencing of the first Malayali genome came on the second day of a conference on Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) hosted by the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology in rivandrum. SciGenom claimed that this was the first complete genome of a female from South India. Link: http://www.scigenom.com

18 December 2011: Enterovirus 71 (EV71), one of the major causative agents for hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD), was reported from Kondotty in Malappuram Dist.,which was first incident in Kerala. It sometimes associated with severe central nervous system diseases and also has the potential to cause severe neurological disease. District Health Department issued special alert to medical team.Enterovirus 71 (EV71) is a virus of the Enteroviridae family notable for its etiological role in epidemics of severe neurological diseases in children.It was first isolated and characterized from cases of neurological disease in California in 1969.There is no vaccine or antiviral agent known to be effective in treating or preventing EV71infection. Link:http://arogyakeralam.gov.in

19 December 2011:A new species of horned dinosaur was announced this month by an international team of scientists - nearly 100 years after the initial discovery of the fossil.Spinops sternbergorum lived approximately 76 million years ago in Alberta, Canada. Spinops was a plant-eater that weighed around 2 tons when alive, a smaller cousin of Triceratops.Parts of the skulls of at least two Spinops were discovered in 1916 by Charles H. and Levi Sternberg, a father-and-son fossil collecting team.It wasn't until paleontologists recognized the importance of the fossil that the bones were finally cleaned for study.Spinops sternbergorum (pronounced "SPIN-ops stern-berg-OR-uhm") means "Sternbergs' spine face."Link:http://www.cmnh.org

20 December 2011: A group of scientists from the UK, China, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have jointly announced the complete sequencing of the Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) and Saker Falcon (Falco cherrug) genomes at the 2nd International Festival of Falconry held in Al Ain, UAE.The study is a part of the Falcon Genome Project, launched and funded by the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi. In particular, the Saker is the national bird of the UAE. In the past century, both falcons have been listed as endangered species with population declines.In the late 1990s, the Peregrine was removed from the endangered species list, but the Saker is still facing this challenge. Link: http://www.falcons.co.uk

21 December 2011: Bureau of Indian Standards based on the past seismic history, grouped the country into four seismic zones. Of these, Zone V is the most seismically active region, while zone II is the least.Broadly, Zone-V comprises of entire northeastern India, Zone-IV covers remaining parts of Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Sikkim, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, Gujarat and Maharashtra. Zone-III comprises of Kerala, Goa, Lakshadweep, remaining parts of Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and West Bengal, parts of Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu and Karnataka. Zone-II covers remaining parts of the country.Link: http://www.portal.gsi.gov.in

22 December 2011: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is sharing its knowledge regarding satellites with the common man. In a unique initiative to spread awareness about how a satellite works and affects our lives, ISRO has put a documentary film on its website. It can be downloaded by anyone who is interested in space science. The film is on Megha-Tropiques, the satellite launched into space in October. The film is 15.2 minutes, including four minutes of animation.After shooting the assembly of satellite at ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC)-Bangalore in early September, the raw footage was brought here to DECU for final editing and dubbing. Link: http://www.isro.org

23 December 2011: Comic legend Stan Leethe, the driving force behind some of the world’s popular comic book heroes like Super-Man, X Men, created first Indian superhero.Lee in collaboration with local artists and writers has created the hero Chakra – The Invincible, that is expected to be lauched in India by April 2012 and would be distributed in India by Liquid Comics' website ‘Graphic India’.The series follows ‘Chakra’ the alter ego of Raju Rai, a genius who is determined to use science to unlock the secrets of human potential. He develops a technically-enhanced suit that activates the mystical chakras of the body unleashing newfound abilities and powers. Link: http://www.liquidcomics.com

24 December 2011: Scientists at the University of California Center for Hydrologic Modeling in Irvine says they have recorded drops in groundwater levels in many places across the globe during the past nine years. Water was found to be disappearing beneath southern Argentina, western Australia and stretches of the United States. The findings raise concerns farmers are pumping too much water out of the ground in dry regions, researchers said. The drop is especially severe in parts of India, the Middle East, China and California where expanding agriculture has increased water demand. People are using groundwater faster than it can be naturally recharged.Current water use in many areas has become unsustainable. Link: http://www.ucchm.org

25 December 2011:Our present chronology by which the years are numbered as AD or BC was conceived by the Roman abbot "Augustus" Dionysius Exiguus around 523 A.D. Unfortunately, Dionysius made a significant errors in his calculations. The first was his placement of 1 A.D. immediately following 1 B.C., completely disregarding the mathematically required 0 in between. Back then in Europe, zero was not considered a number. So, for instance, the year we now call 3 B.C., is actually it is 2 BC  numerically speaking.In ancient times, Dec. 25 was the date of the lavish Roman 'festival of Saturnalia'. It has been said that early Christians chose the date of the Saturnalia in order to avoid attention and thus escape persecution.Link: http://www.simpletoremember.com

26 December 2011: Inaugurating the 125th birth anniversary celebrations of Ramanujan at the University of Madras, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has declared his birthday, that is December 22, as the National Mathematics Day and the year 2012 as a whole as the National Mathematical Year.India has a long and glorious tradition of mathematics that we need to encourage and nurture.A genius like Ramanujan would shine bright even in the most adverse of circumstances, but we should be geared to encourage and nurture good talent like that of Ramanujan. Link: http://www.archive.org

27 December 2011: A new species of snake has been named after Varad Giri, deputy director (collections) and curator of the herpetological collection, Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) - Dendrepahis girii. Herpetological experts from Germany, Dr Gernot Vogel and Dr Johan Van Rooijen have written about the Dendrepahis girii in their scientific research paper, which was published in Taprobanica journal on December 20. The new species was discovered in 2001, by  Ashok Captain and Kedar Bhide, from Amboli in Sindhudurg, in Konkan region of Maharashtra.When Dr Vogel had visited BNHS in 2009, Giri had shown him his discovery. Based on the data Dr Rooijen named the snake after Giri.Link: http://www.taprobanica.lk

28 December 2011: In the three weeks that followed Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy’s discovery on Nov. 27, the astronomical world is enjoying the new comet Lovejoy, officially known as C/2011 W3. Comet Lovejoy comes from an exceptional lineage, as a member of the Kreutz family of sungrazing comets: Its brightest relatives, such as the Great Comets of 1843, 1882, and 1965, became visible in full daylight to the unaided eye when near the Sun.Obvious and bright as the tail was, the comet lacked a discernable nucleus, bringing to mind another Kreutz comet, the Great Southern Comet of 1887, also known as the “Headless Wonder.” Australian comet discoverer David Seargent saw the comet on Dec. 23 and described it, as “The Great Christmas Comet of 2011”. Link: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov

29 December 2011: Cyclone Thane has made landfall on the southern Indian coast, battering the area with rain and strong winds, officials say. Winds of 140km/h (86mph) have damaged houses and uprooted trees and electricity poles.The wind speed is around 140 km/h at Pondicherry and Cuddalore.Waves 1.5m high are hitting the shores. Last year, at least 23 people were killed when the southern coast was battered by Cyclone Laila, the worst storm to hit the state of Andhra Pradesh in 14 years. More than 50,000 people had to be evacuated. Andhra Pradesh saw its worst cyclone in 1977 in which more than 10,000 people were killed. India's weather office had earlier warned residents along parts of the country's southeastern coast that Cyclone Thane is likely to cause heavy rains and gale-force winds. Link: http://www.imd.gov.in/

30 December 2011: China has declared its intent to send a man to the moon, aiming to become the first nation to reach the lunar surface  since December 1972 when American astronauts landed as part of the Apollo 17 mission. The landing is not expected until at least 2020 but human space flight will be achieved by 2016. The country hopes to complete it first space station in the same year, a goal encouraged by the successful mission to dock two unmanned spacecraft in orbit last month. Two Chinese flights are expected in the 2012, nine years after Yang Liwei became the first “taikonaut” to reach space. Although the space programme is being run by the Chinese military, the officials say, country has no ambitions for weapons in space. Link: http://www.cnsa.gov.cn 

31 Dececember 2011: The first of two gravity-mapping NASA spacecrafts (GRAIL - Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory), entered into orbit around the moon today, marking a New Year's arrival in a mission that will study Earth's nearest neighbor from crust to core.After gradually circling down to super-low orbits, the pair will zip around the moon in tandem, working together to map the lunar gravity field in unprecedented detail.Scientists expect the probes' measurements to help unlock some longstanding mysteries about the moon's composition and evolution-mysteries that remain unsolved despite more than 100 missions to the moon over the years.Link: http://moon.mit.edu

MOVIE OF THE MONTH: DECEMBER 2011

                                              
Director:  Steven Spielberg

Producer:Steven Spielberg

Camera:  Janusz Kamiński

Studio:   DreamWorks Pictures

Release: 25 December 2011

Running:146 minutes

War Horse, based on a popular young-adult novel that begat an award-winning theatrical production, is expected to have broad appeal. It tells the odyssey-like story of a farm animal named Joey who is sold to the war effort and starts in the British cavalry before passing through various hands on the battlefield, finding friends among foes, and witnessing firsthand the brutal and indiscriminate machinery of war.

The film directed by Steven Spielberg and is intended for release in the United States on 25 December 2011 and in the United Kingdom on 13 January 2012. It is based on both War Horse, a children's novel set during World War I, by British author Michael Morpurgo, first published in the United Kingdom in 1982, and the 2007 stage adaptation of the same name.

War Horse is based on a young-adult novel by Michael Morpurgo, published in 1982. It came to Spielberg's attention after his longtime producer, Kathleen Kennedy, saw a stage version of the story in London, performed by the Handspring Puppet Co. While Morpurgo's novel was narrated in the first person by Joey, the stage-show horses express themselves only through movement and become ciphers for the human characters Joey encounters — a doomed British officer who brings him to war, a regretful German officer seeking escape and a young French girl who cares for him after being wounded.

Morpurgo, who has written many novels using animals to explore adult themes, such as war, to make them accessible to young readers, also runs a farm that invites city children to visit and experience rural life. The play and, now, the movie have brought new life to his nearly 30-year-old book. There aren't many stars in War Horse, but Tom Hiddleston, seen as the god Loki in the Marvel Comics movie Thor, is one of them. He co-stars as Captain Nichols, who purchases Joey for the war and is bringing him out of town alongside this crew of new soldiers.

War Horse has been given a PG-13 rating, which means this drama likely won't thrust the audience as deeply into the gory maw of battle. Like Morpurgo's book, it aims to explore horror through innocence, a horse that doesn't understand, and the young men who find they don't either. It goes back to a theme of responsibility and fatherhood Spielberg has explored in many films. With War Horse, it's natural to assume it will be positioned as a potential award nominee. In the midst of shooting, however, Spielberg says he can't think about that.

Website: http://www.warhorsemovie.com